Mrs Landrum ~ Day30 (Birthday Thanks)

Birthday Thanks is a 31 day blog challenge focusing on people who have influenced, shaped, affected and changed my life. My birth was awesome but my ALMOST 28 years of living has been enhanced by the people I’ve met along the way.

Today, I am grateful for Mrs. Landrum. Mrs. Landrum was my 2nd and 3rd grade teacher. She was the first person, aside from my mom to make a huge impact on me regarding education. I came to adore school because of Mrs. Landrum. I loved our one minute math test. I enjoyed reading the assignments she gave us. I also loved being an Angel in the Christmas program she developed. I loved that Mrs Landrum EXPECTED everyone in her class to pass with flying colors. She expected A’s. I know some people don’t do well with expectations and its probably a good idea to drop the expectations we have of others. I get that. For me though, when a leader I adore and look up to sees my potential and knows I’m capable of anything, I love that they push me further than I can imagine. I’m grateful that Mrs. Landrum would only allow me to get A’s on my paper. Now, it was only 2nd and 3rd grade, so I imagine it wasn’t rocket science. Even still as a younger class, it was a big deal.

Every day I looked forward to going to school. I could not wait to get into class and learn something new. Mrs. Landrum was imaginative, funny and seemed to know everything. She was passionate, invested in my success and always smiled when she saw me. It was a pleasure to be in her class. She taught me to write in cursive. She taught me to multiply and to divide. She taught me how to take notes more efficiently. Rather than copy on word at a time from a book, she suggested we memories as much of the sentence as possible and then write out the phrase we remembered. Not only did this keep us from looking back at the book for every single word, we were also working on our memorization skills and the notes we were taking would still in our minds more. It was a simple concept but it made such a difference to me. She taught me that if I pushed myself, excelled and used my mind, anything was possible.

I’ve had many great teachers, instructors and professors over the years but I must say, Mrs. Landrum was the very first one to show me the power of education and the power of my mind. For that I am eternally grateful. I also love that even though I’ve had dozens of teachers and professors since then, when asked who is my favorite its still my 2nd and 3rd grade teacher. That’s how lasting and influential her impact was on my life. She treated me like I was the most precious scholar in the world and at the time, it was such a wonderful thing.

I’m not sure where Mrs. Landrum is right now. I don’t know if she still teaches. I don’t know if she’s retired. Where ever she is, I hope she knows how incredible she is. I hope she knows that 20+ years later, one of her students still thinks about her, loves her and carries her in her heart.

Thank you for everything you taught me both in the classroom and outside the classrom, Mrs. Landrum.